The (completely unofficial) Star Wars style guide: Terms every fan should know how to use correctly

Every time I see someone use the term ‘Jedis,’ I sigh.

Maybe it’s petty, but few things drive me battier than glaring Star Wars typos, particularly when they come from professional and semi-professional news outlets. Here are a few Star Wars terms and spellings every fan (and entertainment journalist) ought to know and use correctly in the years ahead.

Lucaswhat?Lucasfilm, or Lucasfilm Ltd., is the parent company that makes Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and other films. LucasArts is their gaming division. LucasArts does not make movies – they make and oversee games. Other divisions of Lucasfilm: Industrial Light & Magic (special effects,) Lucasfilm Animation, Lucas Licensing and Skywalker Sound.

Ahsoka is the character on The Clone Wars. Ashoka was an Indian emperor who reigned 269 to 232 BCE.

It’s a TIE Fighter, not a Tie Fighter. TIE stands for Twin Ion Engines. In the same vein, there’s AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) and AT-ST (All Terrain Scout Transport.) There will not be a test, so just remember the capitalization. (h/t @JalenJade)

The animals Luke and Han ride in the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back are tauntauns, not taun tauns or ton tons.

It’s okay if you have to Google Kashyyyk. I mean, look at that thing. (Pretty much any Star Wars planet can – and probably should – be Googled to make sure it’s correct, and praise Wookieepedia for having such a high ranking.)

I won’t ding you for this one (and I don’t even do it myself most of the time,) but do note the accent mark in Padmé.

Obviously this isn’t everything – how on Earth people manage to misspell Zahn is beyond me – but they are the most glaring. What typos drive you batty?

Did you know that American fanfic writers in British fandoms (Harry Potter, etc.) often have ‘Britpickers’ to make sure all their terms and spellings and cultural detritus are correct? But alas, I will never stop Ameripicking ‘lightsabre.’ ;)

Would like to add whilst Stormtrooper(s) is one word with capitalized S, clone trooper(s) is two words without capitalization or a hyphen. Similarly for scout trooper(s) (two words, no capitalization) but I’m looking for official styling for snowtrooper(s) – one or two words (SW.com has it as one word)?

Also, probably not part of any style guide but me being pedantic and looking for any official word – the Clone Wars (note no capitalization of ‘t’ in the ‘the’ and the ‘the’ is optional and used in terms of being the definite article) generally refers to material published pre-2008, particularly that released between 2002 and 2007 from Del Rey, Dark Horse & Cartoon Network’s micro-series. While The Clone Wars (capitalized T) refers to post-2008 material, from the film and TV series to books and comics.

Also, because I don’t know how to make the accent mark in Microsoft Word, whenever I’m writing and need to use the name Padme I write “cliche” so the accent is auto-added, then change that word into Padme. There is some sort of meta-commentary going on there.

Dan: neat tip for the accent on Padmé. when writing a blog post, i cut and paste from the web (google padme to get the word with the accent) during the final edit to make sure all those accents are on.

And bonus: Nien Nunb. We don’t really have the NB letter combination in English, but the Sullustan co-pilot has it in his name. However, the Sullustan B-wing pilot at Endor is Ten Numb. (that’s MB)

Fair point. Don’t agree, but fair point :-p
Love Dan’s idea regarding Padme, I’ll have to remember that one!
What people forget is that English and American English aren’t the same language. American is a dialect of English with different grammer, lots of different spellings and plenty of different words. Great point about Potter fiction being ‘Britpicked’. Can’t have enough ‘Cor blimey guvnors’ can we?http://www.jedinews.co.uk/news/news.aspx?newsID=9514

Yeah it is a great post because we all either blog or write for websites and when trawling the media for quotes see these hideous errors all over the place. I have to say that Lucas Film and Hans Solo are the most common over here.
Then again, the Trekkies get Doctor Spock so we’re not the only ones…

Not debating it, but it strikes me as weird for “dark side” *not* to be capitalized. It’s the name of a specific entity, rather than either one dark side among many or some randomly-chosen side that happens to be dark. There are many nations, and many companies have presidents, but as President I would vow to serve the Nation.

Jawa James, I would LOVE to be able to use ‘grammer’ and ‘grammar’ as the perfect example of the difference between English and American English, but sadly I can’t as grammar is the correct spelling all across the planet and ‘grammer’ is clearly a fake world I invented to describe a free trader or smuggler who transports things in REALLY small amounts…

I am taking this link and posting it on the Star Wars Performance University FB page. What bothers me the most on social media by very few fans is blatant disregard toward ANY CANON of Star Wars, George Lucas or any of the official authors. The most egregious offenders are the ones indoctrinating new fans and fraudulently passing themselves off as employees of Lucasfilm, when no contract or connection exists. It is fraud and hurts fans.

To add: why we are seeing pet peeve misspellings and bad reference may have to do with some fans creating fake impostor accounts on social media outlets. To them I say, “I am sorry that you are NOT the first ‘Derthe Vaadaar’ or ‘O Bee Juaan Key’kno B’, but making another account misleading people does not validate your fandom.”

Well I hit the motherlode of mis-pronounced names yesterday. Here in the UK everyone I know pronounces Vaders Super Star Destroyer the Executor as Exey-Cute-er (as in, something that executes things). The metal VHS box set of 1995 was and is known in the UK as the Exey-Cute-er box set.
I found out last night via Pablo that it’s actually pronounced Eggs-eck-u-tor, which isn’t a word that’s heard much over here (an executor oversees a will, but that’s about the only common usage I can think of).

Anyway, it’ll always be the Exey-Cute-er over here because it sounds bad-ass, and I can’t see that changing after 33 years!

But Dunc, you’ll be glad to know I’ve bowed to convention and started typing lightsaber instead of lightsabre (even though it feels TOTALLY wrong!)

@People with trouble typing Padmé, if you’re on a PC, open the start menu, go to “Run…”, type in “charmap” and hit okay. Set the font to something normal, like Arial, and now you can easily copy and paste any special character you want. You can also find it in All Programs>Accessories>System Tools as “Character Map”

The capitalization stuff throws me a lot. I find myself wondering /why/ things are capitalized. Why is the X in X-wing capitalized? Why is Stormtrooper capitalized? Are these things that get capitalized in the real world? It’s unfamiliar territory for me.

I always assumed it was “Eggs-ec-u-tor”. Executor, as in executioner, just sounds weird as a name.